A top Mexican drug cartel figure “El Diego” was captured in northern Mexico, federal officials reported.

Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez, a key drug cartel figure, also known as “El Diego” was caught in the northern city of Chihuahua according to Ramon Pequeno, the head of the federal police anti-drug unit. He was one of the country’s most wanted criminals, with officials offering a reward of 15 million pesos ($1.3 million) for his arrest.

Acosta is also a suspect in last year’s slaying of a U.S. consulate near a border crossing in Ciudad Juarez. Felipe Calderon, Mexican President, stated on Twitter about Acosta’s capture. He said that with Acosta’s capture happened “the biggest blow” to organized crime in Ciudad Juarez since he sent almost 5,000 federal police to the city in April 2010 in order to try to curb violence in one of the world’s most dangerous cities.

Pequeno said at the press conference that “El Diego” told federal police he ordered 1,500 killings. Investigators believe he also was the mastermind of an attack last year that killed a U.S. consulate employee, her husband and the husband of another consulate worker in Ciudad Juarez.

U.S. prosecutors also want to try him in mention name of case. A federal indictment filed in the western district of Texas says Acosta and nine others conspired to kill the three. The head of federal police anti-drug unit stated he expects an extradition request from the U.S. government.

Until now, Mexican authorities have identified Acosta as head of La Linea; a gang of hit men and corrupt police officers who act as enforcers for the Juarez Cartel. According to the Mexican police, Acosta acknowledged he ordered many notorious crimes such as the detonation of a July 2010 car bomb and a massacre that killed 15 people, mostly teenagers, at a birthday party, both in Ciudad Juarez.

The northwestern Mexican state of Chihuahua, which contains the namesake capital city as well as Juarez, has been a hotbed for drug-related violence. The federal government has been targeting cartels’ operations, and especially its leaders, in an ongoing battle.

Mexican authorities have arrested several others they accuse of being connected to the slayings of three people connected with the consulate last year.

Ciudad Juarez has been the scene of bloody turf battles between the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels as well as the street gangs allied with them. The city is also the site of widespread poverty and violence, including an infamous series of unsolved murders of female factory workers.

The violence generated by the drug war translated into more than 2,600 killings in 2008. More than 1,600 of them occurred in Juárez; three times more than the most murderous city in the United States. Between February 17–19, 2011, 53 people were killed, including four police officers. State attorney general’s office spokesman Arturo Sandoval said “This is the worst violence we’ve seen this year.”

The increase in violence left city morgues overwhelmed, causing trouble for storing bodies. As of February 20, 2011, Juárez averages eight homicides per day.

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In October last year, a 20-year-old student was sworn in as police chief of Praxedis Guadalupe Guerrero, a township of only 8.500 people but know as one of the most violent places in the country. The border town is victim of the intense drug war that plagues several areas of Mexico but which is especially present around the northern borders as well as some pacific states. Marisol Valles Garcia, who was studying for a criminology degree, was allegedly given the position because “she was the only person to accept,” according to an official.

Her task was difficult from the beginning. Alongside 12 police officers, Valles intended to confront narco-gangsters who had been battling for control over the town’s single highway. The violence had seen bodies piling up around the region and everything from police officers to a former mayer had been killed – one of Valles predecessors had even been decapitated.

The young woman attracted worldwide attention as the bravest woman in Mexico and claimed that she did not carry a gun or wear a uniform to avoid provoking the drug gangs that operated in the area. She also said she would leave major crimes to bigger authorities and when asked why she had taken the position, she told the BBC that she took the role despite the risks involved because she felt Mexican citizens had a responsibility to try to improve security.

The city of Praxedis is close to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s most violent city, where more than 3.000 people were killed in drug-related violence in 2010 alone, according to the BBC. The brutality of the region is due to the lucrative smuggling routes into the US, and the power of the cartels grew as the US stepped up anti-narcotics efforts. It is estimated that as much as 90% of the cocaine consumed in the US arrives through Mexico.

Marisol Valles Garcia went missing after having ask for a three-day leave to take care of her baby son – when she didn’t show up for work, the mayor of Praxedis, G. Guerrero, fired her, according to the New York Times.

After some initial speculation of her whereabouts, it turned out that Valles and her family had crossed the bridge into El Paso and was now seeking asylum in the US after apparently having received death threats. The US Customs and Immigration Enforcement agency (ICE) confirmed that Ms Valles was in the country; “She will have the opportunity to present the facts of her case before an impartial immigration judge,” and ICE official told Reuters. The town officials, however, had been curiously unalarmed by their police chief fleeing the country, a position which Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson, a state human rights ombudsman, has criticized as an “act of abandonment” to the New York Times.

Despite Ms Valles dismissal, it is hard to blame her for her actions. When the Mexican government unveiled a new database which catalogues murders presumed to be linked to organized crime, it listed a total of 34.612 people having been killed over the past four years in drug-related violence. 2010 was especially bloody with 15.273 murders alone.

Many Mexicans are starting to doubt President Felipe Calderon’s strategy towards the illegal drugs trade because violence have escalated ever since the crackdown on the cartels began in 2006.

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